


Better the Demon You Know

by misura



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: citrus_taste, Demons, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-16
Updated: 2010-11-16
Packaged: 2017-11-01 23:47:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Kris. You </i>summoned a demon<i> because of this 'simple misunderstanding'."</i> (AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better the Demon You Know

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: _darkness becomes you_

On Friday night, Kris Allen summoned a demon.

Given that he'd gotten the instructions from a book he'd bought for fifty cents at the used bookstore, along with _'101 Crazy Cookies to Bake'_ and _'How To Take Care of Your ... Orchids'_ , the fact that an actual demon showed up came as a bit of a surprise.

The demon was dark, handsome and taller than Kris, which was no kind of surprise at all.

"Hi," Kris said, mostly because he felt he had to say _something_ , and 'sorry, I didn't expect anyone to actually show up' would make him sound like the kind of idiot who went around summoning demons by accident. "I'm Kris."

"Kris," the demon repeated. "Okay, _Kristopher_ , let me give you some advise, because you clearly haven't got a clue what you're doing."

Kris _had_ known what he was doing just fine, thank you. The book had covered pretty much everything - he'd even had to special-order the chalk he'd used to draw the restraining circle. It had cost him ten bucks and he'd felt sort of dumb once it had arrived, because it sure didn't look particularly special to him. He'd checked and rechecked all the symbols - three times. He'd kept from drinking milk or wine all day (not that he usually drank a lot of either).

He'd also, he realized, completely missed the part where the book failed to mention anything about what to do _after_ you'd summoned a demon. Not a word on what to say, or even if demons spoke English. This one did, apparently, so Kris supposed he'd been lucky there.

Still, maybe he should have gone back to the shop to look for a sequel or something.

"One," the demon said, giving him a stern look as if he knew that Kris's mind had been wandering a little, "you never, _ever_ give away your name to a demon. Quickest way to get your soul stolen, and you wouldn't want _that_ to happen, would you?"

"I guess not?" Kris's idea of what a soul _was_ , exactly, was a bit foggy.

The demon made a face that implied he was not overly impressed by that answer. "You guess correctly. Without your soul, you'd become like me."

Kris frowned. "You mean I'd get taller?"

No grimace this time, but a full body shudder. "No, I don't mean you'd get taller. I mean you'd - oh, never mind. Why even bother? Forget it. You summoned me, I'm here. What do you want from me?"

Kris breathed in. This was it, then. The reason why he'd paid ten dollars for a piece of chalk, just on the off-chance that summoning a demon would actually _work_.

"Well, you see, there's this girl - "

"I'm _so_ out of here," the demon said, and then he was. Out of there, that was, which was supposed to be impossible, what with the chalk circle Kris had spent three hours getting exactly right. Then again, calling up demons probably wasn't very high up on the list of possible things, so there you were.

"Thanks for nothing." The demon probably couldn't even hear him anymore, only it made Kris feel a little better to say it out loud.

 

Walking home, Kris tried to talk himself into thinking he was dreaming. It seemed as solid an explanation for what had happened as any, and it had the added benefit of not making him feel like a fool for first believing he could summon a demon and then somehow finding exactly the wrong thing to say to it.

He'd just go to bed, fall asleep, and then when he woke up again tomorrow, it would be as if nothing had happened. Everything would be back to normal, without any demons. Maybe he'd try to sell his demon summoning kit on eBay - it'd be a shame to just throw it all away.

The front door was unlocked, so Kris let himself in, yelled an "I'm home," in the direction of the living room and quickly headed upstairs before someone would see him and ask what he'd been doing with a piece of chalk, a sprig of holly and a towel. (He still had no idea what the towel'd been for; he hadn't actually _done_ anything with it.)

When he opened the door to his room, Kris figured that things could have been much worse. True, he'd lost some money, but at least nobody'd seen him making a fool of himself - and for all that he'd called up a demon from, well, wherever it was demons came from, nothing had actually happened. Kris'd said 'hi' and the demon'd insulted his intelligence and then gone back to where he'd came from.

"Wha - " Kris was pretty sure the demon hadn't come _from his bed_.

"You're _late_ ," the demon said.

"Hey!" Kris said. "Do you _mind_?" He gestured.

The demon arched one eyebrow.

"Boots! On my bed! Do not want!" Kris knew his mom would notice - although he didn't think even his mom would know the boots hadn't been Kris's. She'd probably just think he'd forgotten to take off his shoes or something.

"Oh, good," the demon said, looking a lot happier than Kris would have been if someone'd just had to remind him that there were to be No Shoes Or Boots On The Bed. "Most people get all freaked out about this whole thing, so you had me worried there for a moment."

" _You_ were worried?" Kris sourly noticed the boots were still on his bed. Sure, they _looked_ clean, but Kris knew all too well their cleanness would turn out to be nothing but an illusion.

"I don't usually wear boots in bed, you know," the demon said, which sounded reasonably enough, so Kris nodded pleasantly, right until the demon added: "Or anything at all, really. So I guess I'll just take everything off then, shall I?"

Kris stared. "Er," he said. "I don't even know your name?"

"Trade you for a kiss?" the demon offered.

"Let me just grab my pajamas and I'll go sleep in the guestroom," Kris said, already reaching for his pajamas. Clearly, either he was still dreaming, in which case sleeping in the guestroom wouldn't do him any harm, or all of this was real, in which case sleeping in the guestroom wouldn't do him any harm, whereas sleeping in his _own_ room might.

 

Kris woke up to the smell of pancakes, which was nice and kept him smiling for all of the ten minutes it took him to take a quick shower, pick out a shirt and walk into the kitchen where his mom was making pancakes for someone who had apparently not been part of Kris's weird dream last night.

"Oh." His mother looked sort of flustered. "Kris." His mother _never_ looked flustered - even when Dad had made her dinner and put on candles and everything. "Adam was just telling me about how the two of you met."

"Adam?" It actually took Kris a few seconds to get it. "Uh, I mean, yes?"

"He's always like this in the morning," his mother told Adam, sounding half-fond and half-exasperated. "Please don't think it's got anything to do with _you_."

The demon - whose name was 'Adam', apparently - grinned at her. "Actually, I sort of like the idea that it does."

His mother did not giggle. Kris didn't think he could handle his mother giggling.

"But hey, my last boyfriend was a complete grouch in the morning," Adam went on, smiling. "So this is definitely an improvement."

"I'm sure it's an improvement in other ways, too," his mother said, making Kris kind of want to go and hide in his room, except that his room probably wasn't safe, exactly. Plus, there weren't any pancakes in his room. "Kris is such a _nice_ boy."

"Mom!"

Adam smirked. "Trust me, he can be pretty naughty, too."

His mother once again did not giggle, and Kris wondered if he ought to reconsider his decision that the pancakes were worth staying for. "Oh, really, I wouldn't know about _that_ ," she said.

"When the two of you are done, could I have some pancakes, too, please?" Kris asked.

"Of course." His mother beamed at him. "You must be hungry." She and Adam exchanged a look that made Kris feel like he was missing something here.

"Uh, yeah? Because it's morning and I haven't had breakfast yet?"

 

After breakfast, Kris dragged Adam back to his (that was to say: Kris's) room, which got Adam and his mother trading another look Kris was going to ignore for the moment.

"What's going on around here?" he demanded, once he'd closed the door and listened a good half minute for the sound of his mother just 'happening to be passing by' his room at exactly the right time to overhear their conversation and walk in to make a contribution of her own.

Adam sighed. "You summoned me last night, remember?"

"I thought you'd left!" If he hadn't dreamt the part where he had, in fact, summoned Adam, Kris was also fairly sure he hadn't dreamt where Adam'd told him he was 'so out of there'.

'There' apparently not referring to 'the human world', as Kris had assumed. "It doesn't work like that," Adam said. "I can't just _leave_. There are _rules_."

"What, I need to un-summon you or something?" It would sort of make sense, Kris supposed, inasfar as anything about this situation made sense.

"I need a soul," Adam said. He sounded almost apologetic about it.

Kris blinked. "A soul," he repeated.

"No time-limit, though, so no need to worry about it," Adam said with a cheerfulness that sounded slightly forced to Kris. "I can help you with your girlfriend, no problem."

"Er."

"It's a shame, really," Adam continued. "Every time I meet a cute guy, he's either straight or - well, no, 'taken' isn't really much of an objection. I can deal with 'taken'. But 'straight', well - not much I can _do_ about that, you know?"

"Er," Kris said. "I'm not straight, and you just implied to my mother we had sex last night?"

"Well, yes," Adam admitted. "To that second bit, I mean. But hey, last night, I'm pretty sure you told me - "

"So I don't get naked with hot guys when I don't even know their name, so what?" Kris snapped, because it wasn't bad enough that up until today everyone who knew him seemed to assume he was straight - no, complete strangers had to assume it, too, which was just ... insulting. "That doesn't mean I'm straight! That just means I _think_."

"I was referring to that bit where you told me about why you summoned me?" Adam said weakly.

"Oh." Okay, yes, on second thought, maybe that had sort of sounded - "Well, you know better now."

"Your mom's reaction this morning did seem a little bit ... unusual," Adam admitted.

Kris could tell the words 'I was wrong' weren't going to be heard any time soon, let alone 'I'm sorry'. On the other hand: "Actually, you're right."

"No, I'm not," Adam said quickly. "You're gay! And cute! And ... not taken?"

"I'm pretty sure my mother thinks I'm straight." She'd certainly never indicated anything else to Kris. 

Adam's expression turned extremely dubious. "Look, Kris, if you're in the closet, that's cool with me. Well, not 'cool', but hey, it's your choice. However, I'm pretty sure that when a mother thinks her son is straight, her reaction to meeting a guy she doesn't know when he's coming out of the shower is _not_ telling him he should stay for breakfast."

"Please say you were wearing a towel at the time."

"I was wearing a towel at the time," Adam said with an utter lack of conviction.

"My mother saw you _naked_?" Kris asked, horrified.

"Now you can ask her what you're missing out on?"

 

The thing was: there was, indeed, 'this girl' and Kris grudgingly had to admit that Adam might, perhaps, be of some use in helping solve the problem she represented.

"Her name is Katy and, well, everybody seems to think we're going to get married," Kris explained.

Adam nodded. "She acts sweet in front of others, but secretly, she's a psycho bitch who threatens to make your life miserable if you don't marry her. I know the type."

"What?" Kris said. "No! Katy's not like that at all! Katy's great! I love her!"

"Okay," Adam said. "I can see where people might get the wrong idea about the two of you."

Kris supposed he could have known this wasn't going to work out the way he'd wanted it to. "Look, just because I can say I love her, that doesn't mean I want to _marry_ her."

Adam shook his head. "Now you just sound like a guy who wants sex without a commitment."

"I'm gay." Kris had _told_ people he was gay.

They just seemed to think he meant he was happy - or, at best, that he was gay- _friendly_. "Prove it," Adam challenged.

"How am I supposed to do that?" Showing up with a boyfriend might do the trick, Kris had figured.

Showing up with Adam might do in a pinch. "Have sex with me," Adam said. "You know my name now, right?"

"I don't think so," Kris said.

"It's Adam!"

Kris rolled his eyes. "I _know_ that! I'm just not going to have sex with you!"

"Not ever?" Adam looked crestfallen.

"I didn't say _that_ ," Kris said, because, well, Adam _was_ hot and good-looking and kind of fun when he wasn't being annoying. Plus, Kris's mom liked him. "Just not right now."

Adam cheered up again, fast enough to make Kris wondered if he'd only been putting on an act before. "Okay."

"What's with this obsession, anyway? I mean, you're a demon. You don't need sex to stay alive or something like that, right?" Kris decided that if Adam said 'yes', he wouldn't have any other choice. It was Kris's fault Adam was here, after all - if Adam needed sex to stay alive, clearly Kris would have to be the one to provide it.

"I'm a guy?" Adam said. "You're cute, you're gay, you think I'm hot, so why not?"

"I'm a guy and _I_ don't think about sex all the time." And even when he did, he didn't talk about it.

"You're special," Adam said. "And a terrible liar. Admit it: you've wondered what I look like naked."

Kris decided there was no need to dignify that comment with an answer. "Anyway, I want to tell Katy first. Then she can tell her parents, and her parents can tell their neighbors and then by the end of the week, pretty much everyone will know I'm not going to marry Katy because I'm gay _that_ way."

Adam looked at him for a few seconds, eyes serious. "And you're sure they'll be all right with that?"

"These people are good, friendly people, Adam." Kris knew he should feel touched at Adam's concern, but mostly, he felt annoyed Adam would assume people might _not_ be all right with Kris being gay - people whom Kris had known for pretty much all his life, while Adam'd never even _met_ them.

"So why didn't they ever listen to you before?" Adam asked softly.

"It was just a simple misunderstanding." Maybe Kris should have made a bigger deal out of it - he'd just sort of given up after a while, told himself that it could wait.

Adam sighed. "Kris. You _summoned a demon_ because of this 'simple misunderstanding'."

"Everything will be fine once everybody knows," Kris said stubbornly.

 

Katy took one look at Adam, looked at Kris and just like that, Kris knew she knew.

She really was the most amazing person he'd ever met.

"Um, yeah," he said, because he figured there wasn't a whole lot else to say.

"Does he come in a straight model?" she asked, grinning at Adam, who grinned back and gave Kris a slight sense of deja-vu.

"I do have a younger brother, actually," Adam said. "He looks nothing like me, though."

Katy beamed at him. Adam beamed back. Kris told himself he should be happy they seemed to get along so well, instead of, well, worried.

"Hurt him and I'll break your kneecaps."

Adam grinned again, more slowly this time. "What if _he_ 's the one hurting _me_?"

"In that case, he's kinkier than I thought and I will approve." Katy leaned forwards and gave Kris a quick peck on his cheek. "Don't screw up, all right?" she whispered. "And I'm happy for you."

 

Kris had underestimated the speed with which the news would travel, he discovered; it barely took one day for people to look at him just a little bit differently when they met him and Adam.

Nobody was openly disapproving, although Adam got a few suspicious looks, being a new face.

"I think this might actually work quite well," Kris said happily over breakfast the next day.

Adam looked up from the newspaper. "They're holding try-outs for the next round of _American Idol_ ," he said.

"Mom watches that show sometimes." Kris did, too, on occasion. David Cook had been worth watching, definitely, and his singing voice wasn't bad at all either, so last year, Kris had become a bit of an actual fan. "It's fun, I guess." There were always a few candidates that made Kris wonder how they'd gotten where they were. _He_ could sing better than some of them, and he was a perfectly average guy.

"I think we should go." Kris would have thought Adam was joking, except that he looked completely serious. "To different try-outs, of course."

Kris couldn't say he'd made many plans beyond the part where he _didn't_ get married to Katy, but ... it wasn't as if he had any illusions about music ever being more than a hobby. " _Why_?"

"Because if I'm going to stay here for a while, I'm going to need a job," Adam explained. "So I figured I could become a rockstar, and you could become, well, a famous singer-songwriter."

"Oh, come on." Kris chuckled. "You think it's _that_ easy."

"Can't hurt to go to a try-out, can it?"

Kris supposed it couldn't, at that - it would definitely be easier than arguing with Adam about how realistic 'rockstar' was by way of a job choice. "Oh, all right. Why not? Might be fun."

Adam nodded. "And if, say, I'd actually _win_ , would you ... ?"

"You make it to the top five, and I'll come congratulate you," Kris said. "Naked."


End file.
